Kakao to close Tapas Entertainment Korean office next month as part of a restructuring

Kakao Entertainment, owned by South Korean tech large Kakao, will shut down the Korean department of Tapas Entertainment, the U.S.-headquartered storytelling platform, next month. 

Kakao Entertainment advised TechCrunch that it plans to close the Korean office as part of a restructuring effort to zero in on the corporate’s North American and different international models. The closure will even embrace layoffs impacting the Korean-based crew.

“Tapas Entertainment is streamlining operations to respond flexibly [and quickly] in the North American market in response to the global economic downturn,” a Kakao Entertainment spokesperson advised TechCrunch. “Tapas Korea has been in the service of operation and marketing of Tapas Entertainment that is headquartered in the U.S.”  

The firm didn’t present the overall quantity of staff at Tapas Entertainment and what number of staff at Tapas Korea will likely be laid off. According to native media shops, Tapas Korea has about 20 staff. 

KaKao Entertainment has three core models: an artist company (Kakao Entertainment), a storytelling unit (Tapas Entertainment), and a Spotify-like music enterprise (Melon). 

Tapas Entertainment operates Tapas, a Los Angeles-based webcomic platform; Radish, a New York-based serialized fiction app; and Wuxiaworld, an Asian fantasy fiction platform. 

Kakao Entertainment will take over the duties beforehand dealt with by Tapas Korea, a resolution made as a result of the bigger group has extra expertise and capabilities, the spokesperson defined. They added that this isn’t associated to Silicon Valley Bank’s failure final week even though Tapas Entertainment is a depositor of SVB. The firm is at the moment getting ready measures to cope with the fallout of the SVB collapse, together with diversifying property into completely different banks and accounts. Due to the U.S. authorities and regulators’ fast actions, which can assure all deposits, the spokesperson mentioned there shouldn’t be any impact on the corporate. 

The spokesperson additionally mentioned the restructuring isn’t associated to an ongoing acquisition deal talks Kakao is holding concerning Okay-pop company SM Entertainment. 

The information of the Korean department shutdown comes almost two months after Kakao Entertainment’s large fundraising of about $966 million (1.2 trillion received) from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Singapore’s sovereign fund GIC earlier this yr. The firm mentioned it might use the financing for additional worldwide enlargement and acquisitions. 

In May 2022, Kakao Entertainment merged two storytelling platforms, Tapas and Radish Media, to speed up Kakao Entertainment’s development in North America. After the merger, it rebranded the mixed unit to Tapas Entertainment.